I thank the members and the Vice Chairman for his kind words. I am delighted to have this opportunity to share some personal reflections on Ireland’s membership of the European Union. Over half of my 36 years as an Irish official were spent on EU business, mostly in the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of the Taoiseach. I also spent a year in the European Commission in Brussels. I served at a senior level as Permanent Representative to the European Union from 2009 to 2013 and as Second Secretary General at the Departments of the Taoiseach and Foreign Affairs from 2014 until my retirement in 2019. I was heavily involved in the EU presidencies of 2004 and 2013, in the latter as chairman of the Committee of Permanent Representatives, COREPER, and head of what was, especially for the Presidency, a beefed-up team of 180 people in Brussels. Issues in which I was involved included: the negotiation of the Nice and Lisbon treaties, and the referendums on them; the financial and eurozone crises and the Irish bailout; the EU’s foreign policy, in particular on the Middle East and on Russia; the migration crisis; and, of course, Brexit, which dominated my last years.
I would be happy to answer questions on any of these subjects, or indeed on any other topic. However, I thought it might dovetail quite well with Tony's presentation, which I understand is going to give us a tour of the current issues, and be helpful if I offered some very brief and by no means exhaustive thoughts on the how, rather than the what, of Irish engagement with the EU. I am painting with a very broad brush and some of what I say may well be out of date.
The first point is that engagement is, and must be, a whole-of-government effort. To a greater or lesser extent, every Department has an EU role. Virtually every one of them has at least one official seconded to the Permanent Representation. Brussels tends to operate in a whole series of distinct institutional circles, but some important issues do involve overlaps and competing objectives. This makes proper co-ordination essential. While this has been strengthened over the past number of years under the Departments of the Taoiseach and of Foreign Affairs, our system, whether at political or official level, is still relatively loose and informal. This has its strengths – we can be agile and flexible – but also its weaknesses in terms of coherence and consistency. One of my former colleagues, Mr. David Cooney, who was Secretary General of the Department, used to say we are a very good cup team, but not always so good in the league.
Second, it is essential that officials all along the chain have a strong knowledge of the issues to enable them to assess our interests and formulate clear and realistic policies. This is often and usually, but not always, the case. The overall quality of the Irish civil servants working on EU issues is high and compares well with those of other countries, but I used to think that the focus of some colleagues could be quite narrow. Technical expertise is essential, but a broader awareness of the policy and political background, both in Brussels and in other member states, is also valuable. My experience was that many Departments' international and EU sections were understaffed and not in a position to acquire that kind of knowledge or to analyse issues as deeply as some of their counterparts from other member states. To increase the pool of expertise, increasing the number of secondments from Departments to the EU institutions has been a priority over recent years. In my view, it is at least as important as the permanent employment of Irish citizens in the institutions, which perhaps gets a lot more attention.
Third, the quality of Taoisigh and Ministers matters. It is they who make the big calls and interact with their opposite numbers. Indeed, in the case of Taoisigh, they are entirely on their own at European Councils, something which came as rather a surprise to the current Taoiseach when we first went to the European Council, because he had been used to attending Councils as a Minister with a battery of officials with him. The leaders, prime ministers and presidents sit entirely by themselves. They set standards and objectives for their officials, and communicate with the public, which is absolutely essential. On having to talk about the whole question of communicating on Europe as well, I was saying earlier that I am a member of the board of European Movement Ireland which has that responsibility as well. Even without the note on privilege, which the Vice Chairman read out, I would not dare comment on the individual performances of my former masters, but in general I think we have been well served.
Fourth, a small member state has to prioritise and to pick and choose its battles. We have always been good at identifying and negotiating hard and effectively on absolutely key issues, usually from a defensive angle, whether in regard to tax, agriculture, or security and defence. We could, perhaps, do more to help set the agenda on other important questions, as we have done, for example and to be fair, on the development of the Single Market. I would say that the current permanent representative, Mr. Tom Hanney, had a big role in that, in particular when he was deputy permanent representative and now as permanent representative. At the same time, I think we have to be realistic about the limits of our influence. Intervening on everything is not productive and does not win you friends. I used to sit at COREPER meetings and a Finnish colleague had a great saying. He would intervene and say: "Everything has been said, but not yet by everybody". Whenever somebody chose not to use his or her opportunity to intervene, there would be a certain sign of relief. Of course, we have to remember the great majority of issues - not all of them - are subject to qualified majority voting. In relative terms, it favours small member states, but our power is inevitably much less than those of the large states. We have to husband our power.
Fifth, building and nurturing relationships is key, whether with the EU institutions, not just the Commission but increasingly and crucially the Parliament, with other member states and at times with the media, as Tony will know. In my time in Brussels, because of the Lisbon Treaty referendum, the financial crisis and the Presidency, Ireland was more in the spotlight than it was used to being or would like to be, dealing with media, and not just Irish media. Tony was there at the time with Sean Whelan, Arthur Beesley and Suzanne Lynch of The Irish Times. We would also deal with a lot of the international media from the UK, France, Germany and elsewhere. This kind of networking requires a considerable investment of time and energy on the part of politicians and officials, which is not helped by our geographical position. It takes a bit longer to get places. The domestic demands on Irish Ministers, as far as I am aware, are probably greater because of the way this Parliament operates and the nature of constituency work and all of that. Some of this effort can be wasted, because inevitably there is a turnover of member state governments and ministers. Thinking about it statistically, some governments change much faster and some change more slowly, but we could take it that seven or eight governments rotate every year. I used to be struck by how rapidly an Irish Minister in office for two or three years could rocket up the seniority ladder among his or her peers, but it is work which has to be done. That makes the work of officials, whose counterparts tend to stay in place longer, also very important.
We are, by a long way, the smallest country to maintain embassies in all member states. I take the slightly heterodox view that I am not convinced that this is necessary, but it is certainly of benefit.
There are almost twice as many diplomats in our embassy in Paris as there were when I was ambassador ten years ago.
We have also developed a strategy of more structured networking with other member states, in particular like-minded ones such as the Netherlands and the Nordic and Baltic countries. Brexit has given this a strong push. At one level, networking happens in and between capitals but on the detail of legislation, it involves co-operation in Brussels and really granular co-operation between the teams in the permanent representations. Incidentally, it goes without saying that while we have done our best to mitigate the effects of the departure of the UK, it has weakened our negotiating position in some key areas such as trade, financial services and justice and home affairs. One statistic I used to quote is that if you look at the number of votes a member state has under qualified majority voting, if you were to add together Ireland, the Netherlands, the three Nordic states and the three Baltic states, you would have fewer votes than the UK had on its own.
I usually found that people like the Irish and we made lots of efforts to keep it that way. I would offer a warning, though. Friendly relations and mutual understanding only go so far. To quote the 19th-century British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston, who built Classiebawn Castle near Mullaghmore, "we have no perpetual allies... our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow". The same is true of every member state so you cannot be sentimental about it. You can have the best relations in the world with people individually but, ultimately, it comes down to questions of national interest which can, of course, include the wider European interest. That is a national interest as well.
Finally, on EU Presidencies, I was actively involved in two, including being at the very centre in 2013. This was the most physically and mentally demanding job of my career and was the most professionally demanding job, although maybe my work in Northern Ireland meant more to me emotionally, and I have tremendous memories of that time. However, I think at times the significance of the Presidency can be exaggerated and misunderstood. In no real way are you setting or shaping the EU agenda, all the more so since with the Lisbon Treaty, the Presidency no longer chairs the European Council or the Foreign Affairs Council. It would have been quite different when Deputy Haughey's father was President of the European Council in 1990. Nor are you in a position to pursue national interests - quite the reverse, unless sometimes at the margins where you can give an extra push to something if you have a national interest. However, you have to be seen as an honest broker, particularly if you are a small member state. The analogy I prefer to use often is that the Presidency is the engineer who tries to ensure that the EU machinery continues to function and the wheels continue to turn and are oiled and greased and deliver good outcomes as quickly as is possible. It does so through chairing the great majority of meetings, deciding on the agenda for each and drawing conclusions from debate. Much of this requires a great deal of work behind the scenes. These tasks require preparation, skill and determination and judgement. All the best Presidencies allow their teams in Brussels to lead day-to-day with Ministers often delivering deals at the end of the process but it often happens that circumstances and the different interests of member states can thwart you despite your best efforts. In 2013, we set what was at the time a record for the number of legislative files that got through the system but there were things we did not advance as much as we would have liked to do. I am thinking in particular of the now infamous GDPR, which was not resolved until two or three years later.
All seven Irish Presidencies would be deemed to have performed to a very high standard, which in 2013 helped to re-establish our credentials as we emerged from a very difficult period. I have no doubt that the 2026 Presidency under the leadership of the recently nominated Permanent Representative, Aingeal O’Donoghue, and Deputy Permanent Representative, Barbara Cullinane, will maintain the unbroken sequence. Another official at the Department, Cáit Moran, is planned to be our representative on the Political and Security Committee so we will have an all-female leadership team in the permanent representation in 2026. It is quite remarkable to think that it took over 40 years for a single woman to sit on COREPER and be the permanent representative of her member state. Ireland had the very first one in Anne Anderson, who also had a very distinguished career elsewhere.
